


The Last Woman on Earth

by queenofchildren



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, F/M, Fluff, Humour, the last man on earth AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-04-25 22:13:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4978507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofchildren/pseuds/queenofchildren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Society didn’t collapse so much as just cease to exist one day, and Clarke hasn't seen another human being in over a year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this was originally just a silly little drabble-y thing posted on tumblr, but then I started writing the next part and figured I might as well post it... No idea where this is going to go. Inspired by watching the first episode of The Last Man on Earth.

Society didn’t collapse so much as just… cease to exist a little over a year ago. At least, a big part of it did: People; all of them as far as Clarke can tell so far. 

From her roommate’s empty bedroom to the deserted streets and buildings all across the city: From one moment to the next, there was not a single person in sight, not one sign of life apart from herself. After being startled by her own shadow a few times and seriously starting to wonder if she was going mad or if she had simply imbibed more than just alcohol the night before, Clarke headed back home, certain that she had solved the puzzle and there was just one possible explanation: She was dreaming.

But when she woke up a few hours later, Clarke was still alone, and has been ever since.

Life got a little weird after that.

For the first few months, she travelled all over the country, in an empty luxury tour bus she found in a hotel parking lot. In a movie, her journey would be summed up with a collage, a weird mash-up of impressions of someone going through the stages of grief while simultaneously embarking on a combined road trip and shopping spree – just a blur of places (all of them empty) and emotions as she went from panicking to realizing there were no more rules or restrictions (a realization she made, conveniently enough, in New York City), to raging at the sky and slowly losing her mind to eventually reaching a sort of zen acceptance.

Free from outside influences, she has learned a lot about herself, and has eventually come to identify two different versions of herself: the one from before and the person she is now (it turns out, social norms and peer pressure used to have a bigger effect on her than she liked to think). There’s people-Clarke, who used to have a big, loud group of friends and couldn’t go more than a day without texting at least one of them. Who used to get up at six every morning to get some studying in before heading to the hospital, and whose painting supplies gathered dust in the corner. Post-people-Clarke sleeps in until the sun or her grumbling stomach wake her, then spends the day lounging around and painting to her heart’s content. People-Clarke was too busy to do things like that, sometimes even too busy to go out with her friends, but post-people-Clarke has all the time in the world and no friends to spend it with. She’s done grieving for them, now, but there were a few months when it seriously got to her. By now, she’s kind of used to being alone – a trait that is definitely post-people-Clarke, along with the fact that she’s started talking to herself.

Post-people-Clarke knows how to deal with an empty world, most days. But people-Clarke would have known what to do when she stumbles across a tent and, implausibly, a small campfire by the side of a lake, would have seen the still-glowing embers in the fire pit and other signs that someone is living here (someone big, judging by the size of the boots sitting before the tent), and known to be wary – she’s all alone in the wilderness with an as-yet-unseen stranger, after all. But post-people-Clarke has been all alone for months, and like a wild animal that has never seen humans before, she has forgotten that some of them used to pose a threat.

Besides, this is a particularly idyllic spot, all rugged scenery and wide open sky, and Clarke pauses to make a quick sketch while there’s still enough light. The vista over lake and mountains, however, fails to hold her attention for long – she’s been on the road for a while and has had her fill of lakes and mountains. Human life, however – that’s a rare sight, not that she has actually seen the human in question yet. But someone is definitely living here, and has been more recently than a year ago – someone else the rapture, or whatever it was, has forgotten.

Putting down her pen, she starts rifling through the shabby little encampment, sorting through a box of canned food, a plastic bag of books, a well-stocked tool kit and a gleaming knife set. It is only when she gently lifts the tent flap to peer inside that it sinks in that she’s not imagining this: Someone is living here. The tent is small and neat, but there are a few things strewn about – a bag of toiletries, some books, a flashlight, and a black hoodie. It is this last item she can’t resist picking up.

The garment is warm from the sun and soft in that way clothes get soft with frequent wear; its hems are frayed and there’s a hole in one sleeve. It looks for all the world like somebody just took it off and threw it down here when the morning chill had lifted, and Clarke suddenly feels herself getting nostalgic for similar afternoons by a lake just like this: days of sunshine and laughter, where sweaters wouldn’t be needed for hours, not until the sun had gone down and somebody had started a campfire to sit around, and if she was lucky she’d get a chance at snuggling into someone wearing a sweater just like this, someone big and warm and comforting…

Before she knows what she’s doing, Clarke has slipped the sweater over her head, reveling in the fact that it not only feels but smells recently-worn, but in a good way. Clearly, whoever owns this thing is over their ”no society means no personal hygiene“-phase, if they ever had one. (Clarke certainly did, and she never really went back to shaving her legs or putting on make-up except for very special occasions of her own choosing.)

Her head is still trapped in stuffy darkness when a voice booms out behind her:

“What the fuck are you doing with my sweater?!”

The voice is very loud and very angry and she’s not making a lot of progress at finding the hole her head is supposed to go through, so Clarke pulls the fateful sweater off again and stands, slack-jawed and speechless, with her hair half-obscuring her sight and the hoodie still clutched in her hands, and looks at the man before her.

The human man. The real, live, talking human man.

Well, not so much talking as yelling, really.

“Where did you even come from? What is this, some kind of robbery? There’s no one here you have to share  _anything_ with, and yet you come and take  _my_ stuff? Were you raised by wolves?”

She wonders if he’ll give her a chance to explain now, but apparently, he’s not done yet. While he continues ranting, she takes the opportunity to study him. He looks fairly clean, if a little scruffy with his dark shaggy hair and stubble, and rather attractive, she thinks – although that impression may be influenced by the whole “no human contact in a year”-situation.

“I mean, you do realize you can just walk into  _any_  store and take whatever clothes you want? You don’t need to steal  _my_ sweater, my  _favourite_ fucking sweater, if you’re cold or you feel like it or whatever the hell is going on here.“

The ranting, on the other hand, is something she could do without, even though it does cause his dark eyes to flash rather intriguingly. Yep, Clarke thinks, it’s definitely the lack of human contact, including sexual contact, that is steering her thoughts right now. People-Clarke would have never stooped so low as to ogle a rude screaming man in the middle of his chest-thumping tirade. And people-Clarke is also the one who finally remembers that it’s time to get some control over this situation and  stand up for herself.

“I wasn’t stealing your sweater. I know that I can just take whatever I need from wherever I want; I dressed exclusively in Valentino the two months I spent in New York. But do you  _see_ a shop anywhere? There’s literally nothing around here.”

“Why did you come here then? And why did you bring so few clothes that you had to steal mine?”

By now, people-Clarke would think that she should probably be afraid – she’s in the middle of nowhere with a stranger who’s yelling at her and no one to come to her aid if he turns out to be a violent psychopath or something. But post-people-Clarke has a gun and the knowledge that, if he too spent the last twelve months looking for human life, the last thing he’ll do is hurt or kill the first and possibly only other person alive.

And then there’s the fact that she’s apparently been so lonely that even being yelled at by a man she’s pretty sure people-Clarke would have  _hated_  feels amazing, and at the same time it’s just a little too much – this is more human contact in five minutes than she has had in a year, after all. Clarke can practically feel herself becoming unhinged as she opens her car door and yanks out the suitcase full of stuff she picked up on her last “shopping trip” and hasn’t unpacked yet, throwing it on the floor so hard that it cracks open and a bunch of clothes spill out.

“I have clothes, okay? Look, I have jeans and sweaters and underwear and a sequined jumpsuit that costs more than a car”, she has two more suitcases full of just insane overprized clothes, actually, “and shirts and bras and everything I could possibly need. But they all smell like store and chemicals, or like one of my perfumes and me, or like me when I’ve been too lazy to take a bath for a few days. But your sweater smelled like  _human_. Do you know how long it’s been since I smelled another person?”

After all the screaming, the silence that falls after her little rant is deafening, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. He just looks at her, mouth agape (clearly, not being around people has taken its toll on him too, and erased the urge to at least try and keep his facial muscles under control), and just when she starts wondering if he’s ever going to say anything, he comes out with this:

“374 days and six hours. At least that’s how long it’s been for me.”

For a few seconds, Clarke tries to figure out if his count lines up with hers. The hours are slightly off, but that may be because she’d been out drinking the night before it - whatever “it” was - happened, and she was sleeping through a hangover while everyone disappeared. She gives up eventually and looks at him.  

“We really are the only ones left?”

“Looks like it.”

Clarke wonders if he too is aware of the weight of this moment, if he too feels like this changes everything (again). Unfortunately, he does not give any indication that he is, and she starts to panic. What if this is it? What if his next words are like “well, I’ll be on my way then, nice meeting you, have a nice life”?  

“Wanna come over for dinner tonight?” People-Clarke would hate herself for sounding so desperate.

It couldn’t take him longer than two seconds to respond, but it feels like an eternity until he shrugs. “Sure, why not. Want me to bring something?”

“I’ve got literally everything. I went on a bit of a binge last month and emptied out a Walmart.”

That’s no exaggeration – after breaking into a car rental agency, Clarke spent two days teaching herself how to drive a truck before driving it right through the big glass doors and into the shop, gleefully loading up everything she can get her hands on.

That actually makes him smile. “Walmart, really? It’s the end of the world, at least go for something high-end. I lived off champagne and kobe beef for the first month.”

She grins. “I’m all out of kobe beef, but I may still have some prime rib in the freezer.”

“You have electricity?”

“I’ve found one of those luxury survivalist houses. It’s got solar-panels, a well, an orchard and a greenhouse… the works. Thank God for crazy rich people.”

He whistles appreciatively. “Smart choice.” Then, after a moment of visible indecisiveness: “Does that mean you have ice-cream?”

When she nods, there’s a look of such intense longing on his face that she can’t stop herself from blurting out: “We could go and have ice-cream right now. My house is about an hour’s drive from here. I’ll wait for you to pack.”

She has barely finished speaking before he’s already bustling about the small campsite, not so much packing as simply grabbing things by the armful and throwing them into the truck parked a few steps behind the tent. He’s done in less than ten minutes, and Clarke feels a little flash of embarrassment at the thought of all the crap she has piled up in her home for the last few months. But it turns out, an earth without people is basically just mountains of stuff, and a lot of it sort of reminds her of the people who left it behind. It makes her feel less lonely. (And also, most of it is just plain awesome, so there’s that.) Plus, he has a  _truck_. That is probably full of stuff too.

It is only when she gets into her truck and waits for him to pull onto the road after her that it occurs to her that he may be following her invitation more because of the promise of ice-cream than because of her, and she has to actively tell herself not to let the thought get to her. Whether he wants to or not, he  _will_  keep her company, because there’s literally no one else left for him to hang out with.

The thought keeps her cheerfully optimistic; at least until they enter her chosen city of residence and his truck slams into the back of her car the first time she stops at a red light.

That’s when the yelling  _really_  starts.


	2. Chapter 2

_Whether he wants to or not, he will keep her company, because there’s literally no one else left for him to hang out with._

_The thought keeps her cheerfully optimistic; at least until they enter her chosen city of residence and his truck slams into the back of her car the first time she stops at a red light._

_That’s when the yelling really starts._

* * *

 

Well, the yelling doesn't start immediately after the crash – first there's her head slamming into the opening air-bag, which hurts even though they weren't going that fast, and then there's just a loud ringing in her ears for a while, followed by cursing and anxious questions she's not quite up to answering just yet as her new acquaintance appears by her side and starts pulling her out of the car and away from it.

She closes her eyes for a moment and tries to ignore the fact that she's being jostled around while she waits for the pain in her head to subsede, and when she opens them again, she's lying on her side with his sweater balled up under her head. The only man on earth knows first aid, that's reassuring.

“Are you okay?”

He looks really worried and the sight makes her almost forget that he's the reason she's lying on the floor in the first place – she hasn't had anyone worry about her for so long, she forgot how nice it feels.

“I think so. I'm not bleeding, am I?”

“No. We weren't going that fast, and your airbag opened and everything, but you still bumped your head a little. You could have a concussion, or whiplash.”

Holding on to his arm, she lifts her head and moves it a little bit, checking to see if she can hold up her head without pain. To her relief, she can not only lift it but even tilt it to the side and complete a full roll, which is a relief – the last thing she needs right now is a spinal injury, and while she hasn't asked him what he used to do for a living, what are the chances he'll be an orthopedic surgeon?

“I'm fine.”

He does not look entirely convinced, but he accepts her assessment and goes on to ask: “Why the hell did you stop?”

“Because the light was red.”

He pauses for a few long seconds, taking in the information, and then his face takes on an incredulous expression and he all but screams at her: “WHO THE HELL CARES?”

“ _I_ care. Red means stop.”

“Yes, so you don't run over people who want to cross the street. But THERE ARE NO MORE PEOPLE!”

“Well, that's what I thought until I found you. What if there are others? What if one of them happened to be crossing this very street right when I decided that, screw it all, rules are for pussies, let's just run over all the red lights?”

He stares at her for a second, running his hand through his hair in a gesture of frustration.

“You're crazy, aren't you? You couldn't take being alone and you went insane. It was too good to be true, just stumbling across a hot girl after months of...” he breaks off abruptly, blushing, but Clarke is too distracted to ask him to complete the sentence.

“You think I'm hot?”

His eyes briefly slide over her before flickering away again, his blush deepening.

“Well, the only frame of reference I have are faded billboards, mannequins and porn mags but... you're holding up pretty well in comparison.”

That is such a stunningly terrible thing to say that it propels her upright, where she forces down a bout of nausea so she can start slapping his arm.

“You are incredible! I'm the first woman you've seen in a _year_ , and this is how you compliment me? _Porn mags_ ??? Is this supposed to make me _want_ to sleep with you?”

“I'm not trying to get you to sleep with me!”

“Oh really.”

“Well, not until I've checked that you're not concussed or crazy. And apparently, you're both.”

“I'm not crazy. And probably not concussed.”

“Well, then you have terrible manners. We just met an hour ago, you could have at least waited until dinner to accuse me of trying to seduce you.”

“ _I_ have terrible manners? You slammed into my car! With your truck! Talk about terrible manners!”

“Only because you stopped at a fucking red light with not a single car or person in sight!”

So they're back to the start of this discussion, but Clarke's head is hurting and this is all pointless, and as insufferable as he may be, he's the only one she has and she doesn't want to start off fighting all the time – or drive him off before she even got a chance to get to know him.

“This is stupid. Let's just stop fighting and go get that ice-cream, okay?”

He stares at her, incredulous, and she once again thinks that this is it – he'll walk away now, decide putting up with her isn't worth it, and she'll be back to being all alone. Her stomach cramps at the idea.

“That is, if you still want...?”

“Yeah. I still want ice-cream.” His voice goes a little deeper when he says it, and Clarke wonders if they're actually talking about ice-cream. (And then hates herself for even thinking about that after the way he's been treating her.) She swallows hard, trying to clear her head and get her bearings. The important thing is that, for a while at least, she won't be alone.

“Good. Then let's go. We can discuss everything else later.”

He nods and helps her up, letting her walk back to her car without a word. She's already settled back into the seat when he suddenly calls out:

“Wait, were _you_ going to try and get me to have sex?”

She hits the gas and speeds off without answering the question. But as unpleasant as that little interlude was, and as much as her head still hurts, she still feels relieved when she looks in the rearview mirror and sees him scrambling into his truck, falling in behind her once more.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter is tiny, but I wanted to keep going with this story even if I have like 2% of its plot figured out. And I mean, it's not like there's a lot happening on earth without people, so...


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your enthusiastic comments convinced me to actually continue with this weird-ass story, so here's the next chapter. Still no idea where it's going, really.

It doesn't take them long to get from the crash site to her house, just long enough for Clarke to calm herself down, determined to be pointedly polite and act like he never yelled at her in the middle of the road. It's the best way to make sure she doesn't end up alone again before the end of the day, really.

Her visitor must have come to a similar conclusion, because he too is remarkably polite: He properly introduces himself, shows himself suitably impressed with the house and her decision to stay here and get some kind of small-scale agricultural production going again, and supplies helpful tips when she points out things she hasn't quite figured out yet.

All in all, he's a perfect guest, and by the time they've finished their tour and settled on the porch for the promised ice-cream, she feels somewhat at ease around him and seriously considers inviting him to stay for a while. It would be nice to have someone to talk to for longer than just one afternoon. But when she's still pondering the idea over her second helping of chocolate chip ice-cream he says, casual as you please:

“So, do you wanna just talk about the sex thing instead of accusing me of trying to trick you into it?”

Clarke chokes on a particularly big spoonful of ice-cream, coughs and looks at him indignantly. “I never said I thought you were trying to  _trick_ me... Just that, if you  _were_ to try and seduce me, you should probably not start by comparing me to porn actresses.”

“Favorably. I compared you  _favorably_ to porn actresses.” He sighs. “Look, I know this is a weird situation, and I guess the topic had to come up sooner or later, but... maybe it doesn't have to be this weird? I mean, maybe we can just take it easy, get to know each other a little before we start procreating.”

This time, ice-cream actually manages to get up in her nose. “Procreating?! As in, having babies?”

“Yeah, I mean, if we really are the last man and woman on earth, it kind of falls to us to make sure the human race survives, doesn't it?”

“Right. The human race.”

“Sure, I mean.... why else would we be talking about this?”

Oh, Clarke has a few reasons, she thinks distractedly as she watches him lick clean his spoon. 

“What? Oh, the same, really – saving the human race, and all that. It's just a little weird to think of deliberately getting pregnant when I've so far spent all of my fertile years making sure that won't happen.”

He listens attentively, and for a second she thinks she successfully distracted him – until his face splits into a broad grin.

“Oh, I see now... you weren't really thinking about procreation when you were checking me out.” And then, his grin getting unbearably smug, he adds: “You were just horny!”

She briefly considers denying that she was checking him out, then decides against it. It's probably pointless, considering what an ass she made of herself earlier. Instead, she goes on the offense: “Oh like you aren't! No wonder porn stars are the first women you could think of, you probably haven't read anything that didn't feature naked women in months.”

That seems to hit a nerve, and he bristles. “If you must know, I'm currently re-reading the Odyssey.” She cocks an eyebrow and he grins. “Alright, you got me. But who wouldn't love the idea of actually being with another person after a year alone?”

Well, she wanted to provoke him into admitting he's been thinking about it too, and not just for the sake of saving mankind, but she's not quite prepared for how it affects her when he does. And it does not help that he's looking at her intently, serious except for a tiny little tug at the corner of his lips. Or that she's oddly touched by the fact that he talks about “being with someone”, an adorable phrasing for what they're discussing here – which is basically banging a stranger out of sheer desperation. (Which, to be fair, makes it sound like much more of a chore than it probably would be. Several hours in his company have not made him any less attractive, on the contrary – she's had ample opportunity to appreciate him from a variety of angles, and, well, so far she hasn't found one angle that didn't work for him.)

“But...,” he tears her out of her increasingly explicit thoughts, “I still think we should at least spend some time getting to know each other. I mean, I haven't even had time to decide if I like you yet – there are plenty of chances for us to fuck this up even without having sex and making everything more awkward. Yes, it's been a while, but I'd rather be horny than alone.”

So this is what it's like to be rejected by someone who has literally no other option, Clarke thinks dimly before pulling herself together. It's not like she actually put any effort into trying to seduce him – if she had, he'd certainly not be talking like this. He wouldn't be talking much at all, hopefully. 

Clarke is still busy trying to seem cool and unaffected when he continues talking:

“And if we ever revisit the topic of procreation, I would definitely only want to start on that project once we're sure we can get along, and that we're willing to stick together for a very long time. If I'm putting any children on this planet, I'll make damn sure they grow up with both of their parents.”

The topic seems to hit a nerve, Clarke notices, as his face gets tense and serious and his voice turns hard in a way that allows no objections. She wonders if it's a connection to his past, suddenly itching to ask. He's the one who wants them to get to know each other better, after all. She forces herself to refrain from asking – it still seems like too much, too early, even if their conversation sure got weirdly intimate really fast. But she does decide in that moment that, even if he still seems very skeptical, she's going to like him, mostly because despite his earlier show of “the rules don't apply anymore”, he's not going to be reckless when it comes to important things.

But what really floors her is the fact that he's willing to make longterm plans for them in this weird, empty world of theirs. This morning, she was all alone and her plans did not extend further than the end of the afternoon. Now she not only found someone, but someone who's talking about trying to get along and sticking around for a long time. It's almost a bit overwhelming.

***

Of course, three hours later, after they've put the topic of procreation to rest and decided to give themselves a trial period of at least two weeks before they discuss sex again, they're back to fighting, and Clarke is feeling much less magnanimous towards him.

She doesn't even remember what started it, other than the fact that she's a person who likes things done according to her own very specific ideas, and he is short-tempered and impatient and hates being told what to do. But whatever went wrong, he storms out while they're still cleaning up after dinner, stopping by the door to spit out some dramatic parting words:

“Oh, and Clarke?” She knows she shouldn't give him the satisfaction, but she looks up from wiping the table anyway. “You know that saying, “I wouldn't sleep with you if you were the last woman on earth”? Well, I finally know what that really means!”

Despite the fact that that was really below the belt, watching him storm out is still the worst thing Clarke has experienced in a while. Months of heart-rending loneliness, and she manages to drive away the only person she meets after only one afternoon. It seems unfair to the point of being almost funny again, but only if she doesn't think about the many other people she's lost and driven away long before this.

But no matter how much she dreads being alone again, Clarke can't bring herself to go after him. She's managed just fine on her own this far, she'll have no problem going back to that.

Under the pretense of looking through her food stores for dessert, Clarke goes to the basement so she doesn't have to hear him drive away, and returns much later to head straight to bed, forcing herself not to look outside at the tracks his heavy truck left in the gravel driveway.

She doesn't sleep well, despite the fact that she forbids herself to dwell on what could have been and practically knocks herself out with a mug of warm cocoa, to which she has added a liberal dash of rum. But when she steps out of the house the next morning, she almost falls over the blue tent pitched right outside her doorway, entrance facing outwards as if to guard her house against intruders, and the truck is still there.

For several long moments, she just stares at the tent dumbly, trying to make sense of what she's seeing. The tent flap is open and there's no one inside, but still, between the tent and the truck, this must mean Bellamy's still here, right?

Before she can even start looking for him, his gruff voice startles her.

“Are you going to keep standing around there or give me a hand with this?”

It takes her a moment to spot him, half-hidden in the branches of an apple tree in the orchard next to the house, and another moment to understand what she's supposed to help him with: He's picking apples, something that she mentioned needed doing yesterday. So not only did he stay, but he also listened.

Smiling, she grabs one of the baskets he must have found in the shed and joins him under the apple tree to start picking up fallen apples. They spend at least an hour like this, picking up apples in companionable silence, and Clarke thinks that she might, just might, forgive him for being a smug, belligerent asshole if he continues to make himself useful like that. But she's definitely not going to sleep with him. As he made abundantly clear last night, that is off the table.

 

 


End file.
